only a motion away
by callmesandy
Summary: Peter didn't know he knew a shapeshifting alien, but it's gonna save his butt.


Not mine, no profit garnered. Thanks A! Title from Paul Simon's mother and child reunion. For the trope bingo spot secret twin/doppelganger.

* * *

Nick Fury actually called Peter and since he was fleeing from having his identity exposed, Peter decided to answer. "This is basically my fault," Fury said.

"Are you okay? You sound weird," Peter said. "Is it really you?" Such a dumb question.

"Sort of," Fury said. "Here, let's do Facetime."

"What?" But he hit the button and there was Nick Fury, on his screen.

"Okay, brace yourself. I am the person you met and I'm not really Nick Fury but I'm not the bad guy here." Then Nick Fury's face, like, melted or shifted and he was an alien. An outer space alien who was green and totally alien. "I'm Talos, I'm a Skrull. We can do that, be someone else."

"Oh my God," Peter said.

So four hours later, Peter was still in his suit, in front of his new post-Blip apartment. There was already press and other gawkers as May and Peter Parker came out the front door. Talos, the shapeshifting alien, was pretending to be Peter. He looked exactly like Peter, he sounded like Peter. It was incredibly disturbing.

Peter swung down and perched on the awning next to May and Talos. Talos said, "Hi, Spiderman. Hi."

May said, "Hello. I need all of you to stop bothering us. I don't know why you would ever just assume without any real, verifiable evidence that an actual superhero is some kid and why you would think it's Peter."

"I am not a superhero," Talos said. "I don't have super strength. I am not that guy in the suit up there. I am not Spiderman. That's Spiderman."

Peter waved. "I'm Spiderman."

Lots of flashes were going off. Talos was handling the bright lights in his face better than Peter. May said, "I don't know why this person is framing my nephew but someone is."

Talos said, "Also, like, there are kids at my school who could make that video themselves. It's called deep fakes. I wasn't there in London during the attack, but my classmates who were say they saw drones. And lots of other people. If one person makes a video, maybe it can be faked. But if you have multiple people who have videos of the same thing, that's probably true."

"He goes to a great school," May said. "I don't know what school Spiderman went to."

"I can't say," Peter said. "But I am a grown man, not a high school student."

They kept talking for a while and Talos even let people poke him to see he was a real person and so was Spiderman. Peter did not allow poking but he did some flips and tricks. It seemed like it went pretty well. Talos was really only okay at playing Peter, it was a pretty broad interpretation in Peter's opinion. But you'd have to know Peter pretty well to see that.

Helpfully, a bunch of students who knew Peter, like Flash, were happy to post that there was no way Peter was Spiderman. Flash really went off about it. "You could report him for that," May said. "Right? That's abusive."

"But we're not going to," Talos said. He still looked exactly like Peter and was lounging in their living room. His feet were up and he was really making himself at home. Part of the illusion, he said. He could go walking around later while Spiderman was spotted out patrolling. Assuming the cops didn't decide that video was worth arresting him for.

Ned reported back that the general trend on the internet was that Peter was definitely not Spiderman, but Spiderman could definitely be evil.

Also, MJ had 'gritted her teeth and braved Hell' which meant she posted on 4chan and 8chan acting like she, as an anonymous poster with a V for Vigilante avatar, had planted the Peter evidence for the lolz. "It provides a hook," she messaged him. "People who don't want to believe can use that as additional evidence it's not true."

That night May took Talos out for pizza and shooed off people while Spiderman was seen all over Queens and he even managed to stop a mugging or two. A few people started filming the minute they saw Spiderman and looked at him very suspiciously. One guy even said, "Don't kill me, man."

MJ texted him after and noted, "it's not insane to think a masked vigilante who controls an army of drones might indiscriminately kill the 99%"

He texted back, "I'm the 99%"

"So you want me to believe"

Things were totally looking up in the morning when Stark Industries released information identifying the man pretending to be Quentin Beck as a former Stark employee. They had lots of supporting information. MJ wrote, "I wouldn't be convinced but that's me."

"You're very suspicious," Peter wrote back. They were using a VPN and some software MJ swore was largely unhackable. Peter didn't put on his glasses to find out.

"Yeah, I wouldn't be convinced but lots of people probably were."

"It's the truth, too," Peter wrote.

Then he complained about sharing his room with a shapeshifting alien.

MJ wrote that she supported his decision not to use EDITH to suppress the truth.

Peter wrote, "I didn't think of that. Damn it. Probably too late now."

"Shapeshifting ALIENS," Ned said. They were having lunch at a cheap sushi place two days later. Talos was out somewhere pretending to be May while she napped.

"I know," Peter said. "I know."

"Amazing simulation," MJ said. "Is it really down to the DNA? How do we know you're not him now?"

Peter rolled his eyes. "He spent all of this morning complaining about how much he hated being so immature. He's definitely old. Also he said Skrulls can only skim your mind so you could just ask me something only I would know, or some deep memory. And he doesn't have my powers so if we weren't being watched by a bunch of people I could do, you know, really strong things."

"Do you think they usually live in Area 51?" Ned looked at MJ like she had the answer. Maybe she did.

She said, "I bet they don't. But how do we know that they're actually good guys? Where's the real Nick Fury?"

"Oh my God," Ned said. "I was drugged by a shapeshifting alien pretending to be Nick Fury. How is my life this cool?"

"The real Nick Fury gave Talos the glasses, the ones from Tony," Peter said. "Also, if he wasn't a good guy, why not just let me get exposed?"

"It could be part of a super elaborate plot," MJ said. "But it benefits you in the meantime, so we should just be aware but also wary. Aware and wary."

"That's a good plan," Peter said.

"People will always believe," MJ said. "You make even a joke about something and there's five people who'll believe every word and start searching for the answers."

Ned said, "Aren't you usually one of them?"

MJ shrugged. "That was pretty good proof. And like you said, we know some of it was totally true. But now I know there are shapeshifting aliens," MJ said. "That is some pretty serious information. Very deep."

"He really likes to talk," Peter said. "Apparently the Skrull are very oppressed. They're villainized all over the galaxy."

"Yeah, they can pretend to be someone else. Perfect doppelganger," MJ said. "Perfect target for government and other forces out to oppress the people. Oh no, I didn't do it, it was those guys, pretending to be me."

"Sometimes knowing you is very troubling," Ned said. "At least Ms. Potts got the cops off of Spiderman. With factual information."

"Talos is only staying another week," Peter said. "I really hope that's long enough for people to get over it."

Ned said, "They'll never be over it. People will always suspect."

"Took the words right out of my mouth," MJ said.

"Awesome, thanks," Peter said. "But overall, good news. Things trending up."

"Sure," MJ said. She patted his hand. "Sure."


End file.
